Warbird Information Exchange

The rivets on that T-28 will give me forever nightmares.

It has been decades since I built one, I don't remember them being that bad. Looking at unbuilt kits online, I can see what you saying, but I've seen far worse. And on a 1:48 aircraft, the rivets aren't too bad.
At any rate, Monogram was never as bad as Revell...their old 1:72 B-17 comes to mind.

I need to buy an older kit off ebay, a friend has two T-28s, an Air Force NMF A, and a yellow Navy B.
He's promised a flight in the a when its engine comes back from overhaul.

I don't recall if the T-28 has any un-flush rivets, but a friend's T-6 does. Basically, all the wing, horizontal stabilizer and aft fuselage rivets are not flush.
Quite a change from the Mustang and Spitfire I used to work with.

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Here is the Atlantis reissue of the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, Navy research aircraft.
The Skyrocket is best remembered as the first aircraft to break Mach 2, when Scott Crossfield broke that barrier in November 1953.

Like most kits of the period, it is in "Box scale" which in this case comes out to 1:54.
Atlantis is using the original 1955 release art work which was only used until circa 1961 when it was replaced with the more familiar takeoff illustration. In the '70s, that was replaced with a photo of an assembled kit, however a Revell 1994 reissue reverted to this artwork.

There aren't any alternative colors schemes available if you want to keep it stock as all three aircraft were painted white. It will be interesting to see if the later NACA tail insignia are included, as Atlantis often upgrades the original decal sheets.

However, there is one civil scheme...

You'll have to be older than me to remember the initial broadcasts of the Captain Midnight TV series. The 1954 series made the Skyrocket a TV star. Later when the series was shown in reruns, it was renamed "Jet Jackson" because Ovaltine, the original sponsor, owned the rights to the Captain Midnight name.
So, if your up to some masking fun, you could build the captain's Silver Dart.
Here is a photo of a kit finished as the Silver Dart from Bill Engar's report on the 2019 IPMS Nationals for his fun model review website:
https://www.dembrudders.com/2019-ipmsus ... eport.html

So, if you have an old Comet/Aurora Cessna 310 that you can pretend is Sky King's Songbird and a Revell H-13 painted yellow to represent the Whirlybirds' Bell 47G (N975B), you can relive your Saturday morning TV time.

32416

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
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The long promised Atlantis reissue of the popular Revell
Lockheed P2V-7 Neptune is here.
As you'd expect from a 1955 kit, it is in box scale which in this case turns out to be 1:104 (That's the same scale as the Monogram PBY, which was previously reissued by Atlantis. With the two, one could start a nice collection of Navy patrol types).

(To avoid confusion, I'll mention that Revell of Germany reboxed the Hasagawa Neptune in 1:72. You do find that kit available online.).

What's fun about the Neptune is many Western countries used it, so paint and decal options are plentiful. It even had a long career as a firebomber, so civil schemes...both U.S. and Canadian, are appropriate.

No doubt one of the reasons Revell chose to model the -7 variant, it featured new axillary jet engines in pods under the wing and a new bubble canopy giving it a distinctive look over earlier variants.
We tend to overlook that the P2V is a genuine warbird, with it first flying in May, 1945. With a different nose, more armament, no MAD boom and without jets, the early versions look considerably different than the later examples.

This kit was initially released as a straight -7, however, by 1960 Revell reissued it as one of the four Antarctic research P2V-7LP (LP-2J after 1962) ships. This release retains the "Famous Aircraft Series" box art by Jack Leynnwood. Revell would similarly rebox its long serving H-19 helicopter model in a similar setting with the kit molded in orange.

While you gain neat skis, Revell correctly deleted the top turret, and the large lower radome.
This means if you want to build a regular Neptune you'll have to build the ventral radome. It's basically a large "blob" so it shouldn't be difficult to fashion with putty (I'd use a spare round part...engine or wheel as the base of it and then build it up). In service, most Neptunes did without the dorsal turret, so that won't be a problem.

In US Navy service, Neptune color schemes ranged from dark blue to blue and white, finally to gray and white.
The colors on the box are correct for the few ski-equipped aircraft.

Another option would be to paint it black as one of the Air Force RB-69s flown by CIA trained Chinese crews from Taiwan for covert missions over the mainland.

Not to be outdone, the U.S Army received several used -5s as SIGINT aircraft (AP-2Es) and sensor dropping armed aircraft (OP-2Es) for use in Vietnam. They require more work to modify, so I'd expect a modeler to use the larger 1:72 kit.

An easier modification would be a firebomber. In use up until fairly recently, the main change would be bobbing the MAD stinger from the aft fuselage.

I was hoping for a reissue of the straight -7 patrol/anti submarine variant, but I suspect Revell irrevocably modified the fuselage for the ski version. Similarly, they modified the molds of their Electra airliner into the P-3 making the airliner variant very expensive on the collector kit market. UPDATE: I've received confirmation from Atlantis that the molds were permanently modified. However, it sounds like you do receive the turret transparency on the clear part sprue. I wonder if someone with an unbuilt original issue could make copies in resin or by 3-D printing?

Looking at an inbuilt old kit online, it has panel lines and very lightly engraved places for the national insignia. Not many rivets. Atlantis typically cleans up old molds so flash shouldn't be too big of an issue.

As a kid in the '60s, I never saw the original standard ASW kit release, but the ski model was always available with it last being released in 1995.
My brother, an excellent builder who later used his modeling skills as an architect, built mine in gloss gull gray with the international orange tail. It certainly looked great on the shelf.

So, out of the box you'll have a colorful Navy aircraft, with a bit of work by adding the radome, you can have a model of the long serving ASW patrol aircraft.

37575

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Two new kits from Atlantis via Lindberg...
First is the 1/48 Convair FY-1 vertical take off fighter from 1958. It was reissued it in 1987 and 2007. It seems to still be around on the secondary market.

The kit is well detailed, consisting of about 20 pieces, with several being part of the gearing system for the contra-rotating props. The small castor wheels on the tips of the wings and stabilizers "retract" by sliding into the flying surface. There is a seat and pilot instead of the often seen head sticking above a flat surface, common in '50s kits. A 7-piece pilot ladder is also included.

If the shape is familiar, it was also released by Aurora back in the day. That was also in 1:48 and was introduced in 1955. According to Scalemates, it was last released in 1957. No, Lindberg did not buy the Aurora molds, it has several differences in the landing gear, tip tanks, and had a flat cockpit.

The FY was a result of a 1947 specification for a fighter that could launch from regular ships giving convoy protection.
Back in WWII, the UK put catapults on merchant ships and launched worn out Hurricanes to protect convoys from German raiders (probably FW-200s). After the mission, the pilot would parachute or ditch the expendable Hurricane. And you think you have a bad job.

It was designed to take off vertically, transition into regular flight and engage the enemy with 4 20mm cannon or 48 FFARs. Top speed was expected to be a surprising 600 mph. Power was from an Allison XT-40, of 5800 hp. The problematic T-40 would also power the Convair R3Y Tradewind flying boat which Atlantis probably has the ex-Revell molds of.
Production models were to be powered by the XT-54 which was a pair of conjoined T-56s (the C-130 engine) of 7500 hp.

Of course the hard part would be landing, the pilot would have to slowly throttle back and land backwards. That might be a trick on a pitching rolling ship. All without the aid of even a backup camera.

After tethered test flights in the huge airship hangar at Moffat Field, it did test work at the Convair factory at San Diego. On Nov. 3, 1954, it actually did a complete vertical takeoff and landing, the first time a fixed wing aircraft accomplished that. The Convair test pilot received the Harmon Trophy for that feat.

Only one of the three prototypes flew before the project was cancelled. A surviving aircraft is in the NASM.
Lockheed made a similar fighter, but it only flew conventionally with a set of intricate ad hoc landing gear.

Back to the model..not many choices for markings, unless you want to do a fantasy operational scheme. In the late '50s that would have been gray over white. If you wanted to get really wild, you could imagine helicopters had never been invented and they flew off river boats in Vietnam.

The model would be a neat to illustrate the advancement of VTOL flight along side a AV-8 and F-35B.

The second aircraft us one you probably recognize, the SAAB J35 Draken fighter produced from 1955-74, with 600+ produced for Sweden and several export customers. It was the first "double delta" jet and the first Mach Two fighter from Western Europe.

This kit originated with Adams, and appeared as a Lindberg kit the following year. It was last released in a box with later markings in 2007. This release uses the original Adams artwork.

As a kit, it was modeled by Revell in 1:72 in 1957, a kit which was in the Revell catalog for most of the '60s-70s.
This 1:48 kit has retractable landing gear, and a weird rocket tube under the fuselage which actually fires rockets via a rubber band powered mechanism. Additionally, there are under wing rockets which seemed to be standard on '50s fighter kits...correctly or not.

They were operated in a variety of color schemes, no word on what decals Atlantis might include.
There were, and perhaps still are, some civil ships as well, so lots of marking possibilities for this.

Given its age limitations and working features, it's probably best as a fun nostalgia build or as a model toy with its operating features. Serious modelers would prefer the Hasagawa kit in 1:48th.

66175

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Yesterday I was checking the current Revell catalog and was reminded that some old kits are still being sold, even if not technically a "reissue" because they have never been unavailable.

While perhaps not as exciting as Atlantis opening up the King Tut's tomb of Aurora, Lindbergh, Revell and Monogram kits from 50-70 years ago, these kits are still vintage.

Specifically, I'm referring to the nice 1:48 Vought F4U Corsair, which is alive and well and in the current Revell catalog. It dates to 1963...it's so old my brother built one for me when I was a kid.
While not quite up to modern standards it's a very nice kit, well detailed for its time. And as a product of its time, it has some working features Monogram was famous for...retracting gear and folding wings. The original box art is shown below, note its emphasis on its "Working Action Model" features. And try to overlook the fact that the Corsair is shown in a WWII south Pacific scene...love the palm trees...but is wearing post 1947 markings.

Today, we don't look at models the same way they were seen back then. Then, they were after I school projects for boys when they weren't at scout meetings or mowing neighbor's lawns for a quarter. They'd build them and some, would undoubtedly play dogfight with friends.
I always liked the workable features, not for playing but for study. Imagine a time when warbird Information was difficult to come by. No internet, one magazine (Air Classics), and few books. I recall having to go to a bookstore to special order a book from the UK. It took six weeks. Given that, having retractable gear on a kit was useful so I could see a type with and without gear. Some, like the Cirsair, provided details of interesting features, the way the wheels swindled during retraction and the way the tail hook extended. I recall my dad using my Airfix C-47' to explain how he did a wheel landing with the ones he flew. The moveable control surfaces illustrated how planes flew.
So, more educational than a toy.

The Corsair was in the Monogram catalog for decades and even appeared briefly under the Monogram Mattel banner in 1970. I'm sure Revell would have put Baa Baa Black Sheep/Black Sheep Squadron artwork on it in 1977, but that was well before the Revell Monogram merger...(instead Revell put the license on its 1:32 F4U).

Another kit in the catalog,while not quite as old, is the former Matchbox Twin Otter, which first was issued in 1983...some 42 years ago. Of course that is very easy to understand since it is the only mass market, readily available kit of that venerable type...which like the kit, came back into production for a second life.

I'm not criticising Revell for this, just pointing out some of the current kits available aren't too much younger than the old kits we normally discuss. It seems that Revell has kept most of the old scale kits from Monogram (witness the 1:48 T-28 reissue), selling just the odd or box scale offerings to Atlantis. That means there are still plenty of interesting old kits we might receive from Revell. I'd love to see the 1:48 Piper Tri-Pacer and Cessna 180 come back. Also, the complete Monogram WWII Navy collection....SB2C, SBD, TBF/M, F4F, F6F as well as the Corsair.

And Revell is not alone, many Hasagawa kits date to the '70s.
And Airfix is still turning out kits from molds old enough to draw Social Security. However to their credit, they have been replacing some ancient kits with new tooling...recent examples are their 1:72 B-17, Lancaster and C-47.
Revell too, has replaced its early '60s vintage 1:72 B-17 with a new tool.

I really should buy a new Airfix C-47, but I have an inbuilt original issue with the too wide of fuselage and their cloudy decals (compared to American decals, they were bad even when new), that might be a lot more fun.

74570

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.